Separatist militants in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province have claimed responsibility for killing six coal-mine workers as violence intensifies in the resource-rich province.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan is already grappling with intensifying Islamist militant violence while struggling to revive a flagging economy.
A surge of separatist violence in Baluchistan will compound fears for the stability of the US ally.
PHOTO: AFP
Bullet-ridden bodies of six coal-mine workers were found in mountains near Marwar, 35km east of the provincial capital, Quetta, on Saturday, a senior police officer said.
“Their hands and feet were bound with rope and they were shot in the head,” police officer Wazir Khan Nasir said yesterday.
The six, none of whom was from Baluchistan, were abducted outside their company offices in Marwar on Friday.
Baluch nationalists have for decades campaigned for greater autonomy and control of the province’s abundant natural gas and mineral resources, which they say are unfairly exploited to the benefit of other parts of the country.
Baluch militants have also waged a low-level insurgency, at times targeting gas and mining infrastructure as well as “outsiders” from other parts of Pakistan.
A spokesman for the Baluchistan Liberation Army militant group telephoned a press club in Quetta on Saturday to claim responsibility for killing the six workers, saying it was in retaliation for the killing and kidnapping of Baluch people.
“If the military keeps on killing and abducting our people, such things will continue,” spokesman Meerak Baluch was quoted by a journalist as saying.
Tension has surged in the province of bleak deserts and mountains since Thursday, when three Baluch political leaders were found shot dead.
Several people were killed in rioting that broke out in Quetta and other towns after the discovery of the three, who were abducted by unknown men days earlier.
Their supporters said they were taken away by security men.
The provincial government said the killing of the three was an act of terrorism and ordered an inquiry. The military blamed an “anti-state element” bent on undermining reconciliation.
The US condemned the killing of the three men, saying one of them had recently helped in the release of a kidnapped American UN official. The UN expressed its serious concern and called for an immediate investigation.
Rights group Amnesty International also urged authorities to investigate the killing of the three, adding the government had failed to investigate an estimated 800 enforced disappearances in Baluchistan over the past two years.
Baluchistan borders Afghanistan and Iran and is Pakistan’s biggest province in terms of area, but its population is the smallest and poorest.
Taliban Islamist militants fighting in Afghanistan also operate out of Baluchistan, but have no links with the largely secular nationalists.
There have been were no reports of disruptions at gas fields over recent days.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS